Progressives tell Center for American Progress: “You’ve made a mistake.”

Over 100 progressive leaders and organizations, including Naomi Klein, Avaaz, Center for Constitutional Rights, and others joined Jewish Voice for Peace and the Arab American Institute expressing concern over Netanyahu’s visit to the Center for American Progress

Washington DC (November 9, 2015)–A letter to the Center for American Progress circulated by Jewish Voice for Peace and the Arab American Institute and signed by dozens of progressive leaders and organizations was released today conveying deep disappointment with the liberal think tank for hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Signers include MoveOn.org co-founder Noah T. Winer and former MoveOn.org Deputy Organizing Director Natalie Foster; Samer Khalaf, President of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; journalist and activist Naomi Klein; former AFL-CIO political director Karen Ackerman; Zaid Jilani, former ThinkProgress blogger; Jadaliyya Co-EditorNoura Erekat; playwright and activist Eve Ensler; Avaaz, the world’s largest online activist network; the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and theCenter for Media Justice. The full list of signatories is here—new names will be updated.

The letter states: “Netanyahu knows that he has created a deep partisan divide in the US over Israeli policies and is attempting to repackage his increasingly far-right agenda as bi-partisan consensus. As progressive leaders across a broad spectrum of social movements, we are dismayed that CAP will sponsor an address by Netanyahu on November 10th. CAP should not be providing him with this opportunity.”

The outrage over CAP’s invitation to Netanyahu illustrates how out of touch one of the Democratic party’s leading institutions has become with the changing opinions of the Democratic base in regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A broad spectrum of progressive groups and leaders—including rabbis, LGBT rights activists, feminist scholars, anti-racist activists, and labor sector leaders— have all signed on to the letter to assert that CAP’s invitation to the Israeli Prime Minister and unethical censorship around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not representative of the progressive Democratic movement.

Jewish Voice for Peace (www.jvp.org) is a national, grassroots organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for a just and lasting peace according to principles of human rights, equality, and international law for all the people of Israel and Palestine. Jewish Voice for Peace has over 200,000 online supporters, over 60 chapters, a youth wing, a Rabbinic Council, an Artist Council, an Academic Advisory Council, and an Advisory Board made up of leading U.S. intellectuals and artists.

Arab American Institute (www.aaiusa.org) is a non-profit, nonpartisan national leadership organization created to nurture and encourage the direct participation of Arab Americans in political and civic life in the United States. AAI represents the policy and community interests of Arab Americans throughout the United States and strives to promote Arab American participation in the U.S. electoral system.